I didn’t scream. I packed. While he slept, I folded his shirts, his tools, his framed high school football photo, and stacked them neatly in the back of his new “investment.” When the sun came up, I handed him his keys and the consequence of his choice. He drove away in that Bronco, and I held our daughter like a shield against the future he’d gambled.

Three days later, he knocked, empty-handed except for a crumpled receipt and shaking apologies. He’d sold the truck, opened the college fund, and put his pride up for collateral. Forty-five thousand had become thirty-eight, and he vowed to earn every missing dollar. I let him in, but not back. The couch is his penance, the 529 his proof. Love, now, is measured in deposits, not promises. Ava will know: her mother chose her first—and demanded her father learn to do the same.